The other North-Western City

Wow, this post has been sitting in my drafts for a really long time! These photos are from my trip up to the other city in the north-west (Manchester) to see Chelsea before she moved to Den Haag (where she's been for the last 4 months now). My favourite city in the whole world is Liverpool - which is why Manchester is 'the other NW city'. I enjoyed my three university years in Liverpool, so much so I moved back there in my year between China and Korea. I never had much love for Manchester. I visited a few times - for concerts - as the Echo Arena hadn't been built then, and also to visit my brother who lived there. It was always too big, after the welcomingly small size of Liverpool. Everything was slightly different, even their pasty shops had a different name!

It was like Liverpool's bigger, uglier brother (sorry Manc!) So when I went up this time - visiting a good friend - I wasn't bothered at all about the city. Chelsea suggested we look around the new Media City, where the BBC recently relocated most of their studios. This area was lovely. Very new, and based on a dock area which having been newly regenerated was nice. We also walked along to Old Trafford and had a look at the outside of the stadium and the many many visitors milling around outside.

My heart will always belong to the Scouse city down the M62, but Manchester definitely looks better to me now. I've also already planned to take to tram to the end of the line at Eccles next time I visit to sample one of my favourite British cakes!